iema: Updating EIA Practice, Cardiff 07 March 2012

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Guidelines for Landscape & Visual Impact Assessment

3rd Edition

Mary O’Connor AIEMA CMLI

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Mary O’Connor …

AIEMA & CMLI

Associate Director in WYG

Member of the working party that produced & contributor to the current (2nd, 2002) edition of the Guidelines

Currently, member of the LI Advisory Panel guiding the production of the 3rd edition

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This presentation …

Contribution to iema EIA update to members

Briefing you on GLVIA3

Encouraging you to take part in the consultation

Part of WYG’s commitment as holders of iema EIA Quality Mark

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Practitioner led guidance to establish good practice and raise standards: editions 1 & 2

Draft of 3rd Edition out for consultation

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Background

Role of LVIA generally accepted and understood

Understanding of approaches and methods has evolved – and continues to evolve

Need for 3rd edition to update guidance to reflect changed understanding and methodologies

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Updating the LVIA Guidance

A shared endeavour …

Advisory Panel of LI and IEMA members

The writer: Professor Carys Swanwick

Consultation both before and after appointment of writer

Two rounds of consultation on structure

Now: Consultation Draft of 3rd Edition

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Programme

General consultation on Draft of 3rd Edition commenced 15 February 2012

Closing date: 14 March 2012

Advisory Panel and writer meet to review responses, late March 2012

To be published jointly by the Landscape Institute and iema, late 2012/early 2013

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Initial consultations: Key issues

Future proofing

Focus on principles

Areas of practice & techniques subject change: appendices? Interim guidance notes?

Applicability to devolved nations and overseas – emphasise principles not individual policy contexts

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Initial consultations: Key issues

Clear separation of landscape and visual aspects

“Ecosystem services” need to be addressed

Recognition of historic landscape and heritage agendas

Townscape, seascape …

Cumulative impact assessment

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Initial consultations: Key issues

Significance – debate whether the guidance should be prescriptive or illustrative

Iterative design-focussed nature of LVIA … a process

… many other comments filling a table of nearly 50 pages in length, summarised on LI GLVIA webpage

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Some other points

Opportunity to achieve alignment with other documents undergoing revision and updating

Need for consistency with new DMRB Chapter on Landscape and Visual matters for Highways

Cumulative assessment – how is this being approached and what should be advocated

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Some other points How to engage with the public and take their views

into account

Case Studies – are they helpful, how best to include them?

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Need for retrospective review of what actually happened after LVIA completed

Some other points

Images:

Top: Pre-existing view

Middle: Photomontage of proposals

Bottom: As-built view

Some background

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L&VIA derived from EIA Directive & UK Regulations Description of aspects of the environment likely to be

significantly affected to include “in particular”:

… population … landscape, and inter-relationship between them

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Understanding of “landscape”: ELC

European Landscape Convention 2000

Definition :

“Landscape” means an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors

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Population = viewers of landscape

Visual impact assessment addresses the inter-relationship of landscape and population

The Guidelines

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Structure of 2Ed

9 Parts

Parts 1-3: Scope, principles, background

Parts 4-5: The proposals, mitigation

Parts 6-7: Baseline studies, assessment of effects

Part 8: Presentation

Part 9: Consultation and review

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Structure of 3Ed

Two parts, 9 Chapters

Part 1: Introduction, scope, context

Part 2: Principles, process, presentation

Part 1

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Landscape & Visual Amenity: separate but related topics, defined in 2Ed

Landscape effects derive from changes in the physical landscape, which may give rise to changes in its character and how this is experienced

Visual effects relate to the changes that arise in the composition of available views as a result of changes to the landscape, to people’s responses to the changes, and to the overall effects with respect to visual amenity

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Landscape & Visual Amenity: principle retained in 3Ed but re-expressed

Landscape effects assessment: deals with changes to landscape as a resource. Society as a whole has an interest in this and it is recognised as one of the key dimensions of environmental interest, alongside matters such as biodiversity, or cultural heritage. It is concerned with issues like protected landscapes, the contribution of landscape character to sense of place and quality of life for all, and the way that change may affect individual components of the landscape

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Landscape & Visual Amenity: principle retained in 3Ed but re-expressed

Landscape effects assessment: deals with changes to landscape as a resource. Society as a whole has an interest in this and it is recognised as one of the key dimensions of environmental interest, alongside matters such as biodiversity, or cultural heritage. It is concerned with issues like protected landscapes, the contribution of landscape character to sense of place and quality of life for all, and the way that change may affect individual components of the landscape

Visual effects assessment: is concerned with how the surroundings of individuals or groups of people may be specifically affected by change in the landscape. This means assessing changes in specific views and in the general visual amenity experienced by particular people in particular places

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Landscape & Visual Amenity

LVIA deals with both and should clearly demonstrate understanding of the difference

between them

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Landscape – scope enlarged in 3Ed

Rural landscapes

Urban contexts – townscape

Marine and coastal landscapes – seascape

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LVIA & other EIA topics

Cultural heritage

Ecology

Strategic and spatial planning

Interactions e.g. of mitigation measures

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LVIA & wider environmental concerns

Climate change – a force for change in the landscape in its own right and influence on assessment of proposals in the long term

Ecosystem services – many valued landscape features perform a wide range of functions and accommodate “services” from the environment

Sustainable development – an underlying concept in the planning system

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Purposes of LVIA

To understand and explain how the landscape or visual amenity will be changed as a result of the proposal

To apply a systematic process of description, analysis, reasoning and judgement …

… leading to conclusions concerning the significance of those changes

Characteristic of LVIA: frequently part of the project design process

Part 2: Principles & Process

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Principles

Overview in Chapter 4 EIA process & Screening Project description Scoping Baseline studies Identification and description of effects Mitigation Assessment of effects Engagement with stakeholders and the public

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Process: Chapters 5 - 8

3Ed differs from 2Ed in aggregating guidelines for the different aspects of LVIA

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Chapters 5 - 8

5 The proposals being assessed Describing the project proposals The iterative nature of LVIA in the

design process Main discussion of mitigation

Baseline description, classification, analysis

The development proposals

Potential effects

Receptors and sensitivity

Mitigation measures

Assessment of effects

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Chapters 5 - 8

5 The proposals being assessed

6 Dealing with landscape effects

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Chapters 5 - 8

5 The proposals being assessed

6 Dealing with landscape effects

7 Dealing with visual effects

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Chapters 5 - 8

5 The proposals being assessed

6 Dealing with landscape effects

7 Dealing with visual effects

8 Dealing with cumulative effects

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Each topic …

Establishing the baseline, the receptors

Predicting and describing effects

Evaluating the significance of effects Relating the nature of the receptors to the nature of the

change

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Evaluating the significance of effects

Receptors Sensitivity Importance/value

Magnitude of change

Geographic extent

Duration and reversibility

Significance of effects

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Sensitivity of receptors

Landscape sensitivity: “The relative ability of a landscape to respond to and, where

appropriate, accommodate change …”

Sensitivity of viewers: Occupation or activity of people experiencing the view Extent to which their attention is focused on the landscape

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Importance or value

Separate from sensitivity

Landscape: Designations as indicators Value of individual components and contribution to landscape

character

Viewers: Nature of the view Numbers of people affected Length of time view experienced Recognised importance of view

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Magnitude of change, extent, duration

The “amount of change”

Geographic extent: Large change affecting local area or a small change spread over large area

Duration: short, medium, long term; limited lifetime, reversibility

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Cumulative assessment

2Ed provided only brief overview

3Ed devotes Chapter 8 to the topic, discussing: Types of development to include Timescale of proposals to be included Defining study areas Assessing cumulative landscape effects Assessing cumulative visual effects

A complex and evolving field – your responses sought!

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Assessment

Judgements of significance are arrived at by a process of reasoning based upon the analysis of baseline conditions and sensitivity, and of the degree and nature of changes arising from the proposals

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Assessment principles

Clearly defined criteria and their application fully explained

Numerical scoring or weighting to be avoided – spurious level of precision

Verbal scales with three to six categories preferred

Two way matrices or tables may be useful

Overall judgement of significance should be made as consistently and transparently as possible

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Presentation

Provide information in a way that will help decision-makers, not usually expert in the field

Narrative text helps non-experts to understand the issues

Illustrations for quick and easy communication – in support of the text, proportionate to the task in hand

Tables and matrices to support and summarise narrative descriptive text, not to replace it

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Presentation

L&VIA often said to be subjective

Therefore, there is greater importance on explaining the process of analysis and reasoning that led to the conclusions

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Review, Validation & Verification

Review packages for structured look at the content of environmental statements

iema: EIA Quality Mark - ES Review Criteria Scottish Natural Heritage: Handbook on EIA EC Guidance

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Hopes for GLVIA3

To provide the basis for coping with the evolution of LVIA into the future – at least for

another 10 years

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Take part in the consultation …

LI GLVIA3 webpage:http://www.landscapeinstitute.org/knowledge/GLVIA.php

Download the text: http://landscapeinstitute-news.org/6KZ-PAE6-NAG80-9NW4Y-1/c.aspx

Online questionnaire: http://landscapeinstitute-news.org/6KZ-PAE6-NAG80-9NW1Z-1/c.aspx

Discussion …